Review: Weapons (2025)

I'm a bit surprised at the critical response to this film.  As I write this, Rotten Tomatoes has the film at 95% positive from critics and 87% positive from audiences with Metacritic also having it at an 81. This is a very acclaimed horror film in a year filled with such, and this is possibly the weirdest one to be so warmly received.

Not that the plot is too far out there.  As famously shown on the poster and in trailers, the basic plot is that all of the students (save one) of a third grade class taught by Justine Gandy (Julia Garner) get up at 2:17 a.m. and leave their houses and disappear.  The film starts about a month after the event with Justine ostracized and the parents still angry that no progress has been made on finding their children.

The movie is broken into several different parts, each named after the character that it focuses on.  It starts with Justine, but also follows parent Archer Graff (Josh Brolin), police officer Paul (Alden Ehrenreich), principal Marcus Miller (Benedict Wong), drug addict James (Austin Abrams) and Paul (Cary Christopher), the lone student that came to class that fateful day.

The timelines of all of these characters all intermingle with one another - Justine's part starts after Archer's but before James, that sort of thing - but tie together in ways both obvious (seeing a scene start from a different character's point of view) and subtle (the film shows but does not tell who vandalizes Justine's car).  None of this is hard to follow, though it might take a moment to figure out certain timeline events until the point where they collide occurs, and it likely rewards the audience for multiple viewings.

The movie takes its time getting to the eventual reveal of what happens, and uses its story structure to show escalations out of order to keep you guessing as to the answer.  All of the actors do a great job tying everything together and no performance feels out of place, either in the various timelines or the film overall.  Tonally, there isn't much to criticize: the film is somber all throughout with just enough jump scares - usually delivered via dream sequences - to keep the audience from getting too comfortable or complacent.

There are a few minor criticisms to be made. The first would be the ending of the film.  Not the entire ending, mind you, but part of it.  Part of the ending is so darkly comedic and perfect that I almost don't want to criticize it at all, but what follows that particular moment of catharsis feels rushed.  I don't want to give spoilers, but the cathartic moment and what leads up to it is amazing, so having the movie end so quickly after it feels like a proper denouncement is missing.  Again, not a large complaint, just a small wish for a bit more to properly wrap up.

(The other complaint involves some very minor spoilers, so feel free to skip this paragraph to avoid those if so inclined)  The other problem is that, for a very large portion of this film, it reads as an metaphor for a school shooting - even going so far as to show an AR-15 with the time of the children's disappearance in one of the dream sequences.  It plays into the title of the film and hangs over movie up until the actual reveal.  But once it drops that, it completely drops it.  Nothing even hinting at the previous metaphor comes up for the remainder of the film.  It makes it lose a bit of energy.  Nothing too detrimental to the film, but I can't help but wonder how it would've changed the film if they had held onto it all the way to the end.

It also indulges in the 'bury your gays' trope that I could very much do without.

But aside from those small quibbles, this is a solid film.  Not my favorite of the year, but a damn good piece of filmmaking that really makes me feel like I should check out director Zach Cregger's previous feature Barbarian.

8.5 out of 10